People are widely praising President Jimmy Carter’s Christian faith after his passing, a reaction that reveals a telling double standard in how elites treat different expressions of Christianity.
For example, a Washington Post writer declared, “For Jimmy Carter, faith was inseparable from politics and life.” The Hill wrote, “Jimmy Carter was the Christian most politicians pretend to be.” And The New York Times profiled how Carter’s faith defined his activities and outlook in public life.
By all accounts, Carter’s Christianity was a particularly pietistic expression of Mainline Protestantism. This is a faith whose doctrinal core has been hollowed out for decades by theological liberalism. It’s a modernized Christianity that sheds the most controversial and supposedly outmoded elements of biblical doctrine to placate the spirit of the age.
For example, Carter is on record…
